Out of the Conference League qualifiers: The glorious SK Rapid Wien joins the list of Austrian football embarrassments. Only: In Hütteldorf the situation is too serious to joke about it.
Heinz is enough now. According to his own statement, the host of the popular fan podcast “1899fm – Heinz’ Rapid Pocast” has been going to Hütteldorf in the stadium since 1977, but now it’s over: “I’m in shock” he writes on Twitter that a “red line” has been crossed been. There is no longer a podcast until further notice. And even if, as he himself writes, hardly anyone in the club will be interested in that, comments like these show that the 90 minutes on Thursday evening left lasting damage in western Vienna.
The 0-1 draw against FC Vaduz in the final qualifying round of the Uefa Conference League is another historic defeat for Austrian football, but it is once again on a different level than its predecessors. When the national team lost 1-0 to the Faroe Islands in Landskrona in 1990, it was a defeat amusing in its absurdity, with the opposing goalkeeper wearing a bobble hat. When RB Salzburg tried in vain against F91 Dudelingen from Luxembourg to move to Europe in 2012, one could accompany it with malice because it was clear that enough fringe money would flow so that something like this would not happen again (it happened five more times ).
The scenes after the game indicate that the rifts at Rapid go beyond the embarrassing 0-1
The end of Rapid Vienna, a club that still narrowly loses the 1996 European Cup final against Paris Saint-Germain in front of the Austrian eyes with Peter Stöger and Carsten Jancker, is a real disgrace. There was also no bobble hat in the game, but the current penultimate of the second Swiss league, which spoiled the fun for the Viennese. Tunahan Cicek gave Liechtenstein the lead in the 22nd minute, former Cologne central defender Kevin Wimmer saw the red card in the 35th minute, and even Bundesliga experienced Guido Burgstaller was unable to do anything. “I think they deserved the promotion. Our performance over 180 minutes wasn’t right,” said Burgstaller after the game.
To make matters worse, there were still scenes that showed that the rifts at Rapid go beyond 0-1. The stewards were still able to prevent the furious fan scene from rushing into the west stand. Instead, fan representatives made their way into the VIP area and confronted the board there.
Incidentally, those involved can now look back on the Faroe Islands in 1990 and Dudelingen in 2012 with a smile – whether Heinz and the Rapid fans will ever be able to smile when thinking about Vaduz 2022 is rather doubtful.